


god himself would call it justice

by geneeste



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angry Sex, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rough Sex, Season/Series 05, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:32:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8192033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geneeste/pseuds/geneeste
Summary: There’s a choice to be made here. But honestly, she’s so tired. Tired of thinking, tired of existing in this weird in-between, and most especially tired of choosing. She made a choice before, a big one, and the consequences were horrifying. She always chooses the wrong thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've warned for a few things in the tags, but I just want to make sure they're clear: this is not really a nice story, I guess? There are some themes you should be aware of: strong currents of depression throughout, not particularly nice sex, and characters not always behaving well. There is some resolution, however, so if that's something that bothers you (like me), hopefully knowing that helps. The Felicity/Other I warned for is very light, I promise.
> 
> Sincere thanks to the wonderful hannasus for betaing. <3 The title comes from a line spoken by Katherine Hepburn in _The Lion in Winter_.

She arrives at the lair expecting to find Oliver already cleaning up, as she has the last few times she’s gotten there after him.

Instead, he’s sitting at a table, staring at the costumes hanging on their dummies. There’s a bottle of vodka on the table and an empty shot glass in Oliver’s fingers. Sitting is probably the wrong word for what he’s doing - it’s more a slouch, like he’s too lazy or too exhausted to sit upright.

Felicity slows on her way to him, wary of his dark eyes as they tear away from the suits. At least a quarter of the vodka is missing from the bottle, and the way his pupils are blown she knows he’s been drinking for a while.

There’s a choice to be made here. But honestly, she’s so tired. Tired of thinking, tired of existing in this weird in-between, and most especially tired of choosing. She made a choice before, a big one, and the consequences were horrifying. She always chooses the wrong thing.

Even if this is the wrong choice (there’s no _if_ , she’s too smart for that), she can’t possibly make things any worse than she already has.

So she sets her bag down on the floor, and closes the distance to him. He looks up at her as she stands between his legs, close enough to feel the warmth of his calves seep into hers. She takes the shot glass out of his hand, and pours a shot into it.

When she downs it, it burns all the way to her stomach. She pours another shot and drinks that one too.

She doesn’t flinch until he stands up and kisses her.

His hands on her face somehow burn more than the vodka in her throat, but she leans into him all the same. His mouth is punishing, pushing her lips apart to deepen the kiss, and she can only cling to his biceps to keep herself upright.

His hands move from her face, down her body, over her breasts to her ass. He hauls her closer, and she makes a sound - somewhere between a sob and a moan - and before she knows it she’s yanking his dress shirt out of his slacks, so she can dig her nails into his skin.

He wrenches away. The hot blush on her face changes from arousal to humiliation when Oliver stops, because she’s sure that means he doesn’t want this, but then he’s manhandling her around to face the table and bending her over it. 

He barely takes the time to unbutton her jeans before he shoves them and her underwear down to her knees. She hears his belt unfasten, feels him shuffle and stumble against her, and that’s how she knows he’s drunk. Her Oliver doesn’t stumble, at least not during sex. Her Oliver would talk to her and tease her and make sure she’s ready before they ever got to this stage. 

Briefly, she has the presence of mind to think she should stop him because he’s going to regret this, but he’s pushing into her and she welcomes the hurt because it makes her thoughts disappear.

Her Oliver is nowhere to be found now, but that’s fine with her because his Felicity’s been gone far longer.

He grunts behind her, and his thrusts are pressing her into the table. One hand clenches at her hip, and the other is under her - his fingers are insistent against her clit, through her folds and around his cock and then back again, and the line between pleasure and agony shrinks to a point so fine she can’t see it anymore.

She needs this. If his pace is brutal enough to beat out the drumming loss in her head, she’ll take it.

Her orgasm hits her so suddenly that she shouts and jerks back against Oliver. It goes on, and she lays her forehead against the cool of the table as Oliver rides her through it. She finally comes down and shame rushes in. Shame that she did this to them, that she let Oliver do this, and shame that she enjoyed it.

The hand at her hip clutches painfully as Oliver comes, groaning into her shoulder. His hips are still pulsing against her as she turns her head against the table. Her hair falls away and she can tell the second he sees the tears on her face.

His face collapses with distress. “ _Shit_. Shit,” he says, releasing his hand from her hip, slipping out of her as he scrambles back. “Jesus.”

She pushes herself up shakily, pulling up her clothes from her legs. She doesn’t understand how she can feel so numb and so awful at the same time.

Oliver is still just standing behind her when she turns around. He hasn’t put his own clothes to rights. It makes him look so vulnerable, she can’t bear to look at him fully, so she fixes on a point behind him.

He runs trembling hands over his head. “I’m-” he breaks off, swallows. His hands fall to his side and he shakes his head helplessly as she moves over to her bag and picks it up. “Felicity.”

She doesn’t answer him, she can’t. She has no answer to give him.

So she flees.

_\--_

Felicity goes straight home. She strips immediately, out of the clothes she’d only put on a few hours ago, and turns on the shower.

She sits on the tiles, forcing herself to stay under the steaming spray. She tries to ignore how the water stings between her legs, the soreness she’s sure to still feel tomorrow. She tries to remind herself that this isn’t who she is, isn’t who _they_ are.

They aren’t - _weren’t_ \- this ugliness. She remembers a time _before_ (before she was shot, before his lies, before Havenrock) when they’d spent a night in bed, Oliver’s gentleness enveloping her.

She’d laid under him for what felt like hours, his weight and warmth making her feel safe and cherished. Oliver had stayed inside her, keeping their fire low with short, sweet strokes of his hips, kissing her softly. He left trails of kisses on her chin, the side of her neck, her collarbone. His hand slid under her back against the sheets, over her ribs, and he rose just enough to let his palm press low on her belly, making her gasp, and then up between her breasts.

“Oliver,” she’d whispered happily. “What are you doing?”

He’d grabbed one of her hands, twining their fingers above her head. The other smoothed her hair away from her face. Between kisses, he’d said, “Being with you.”

He’d smiled when he said it, so brightly, and she’d known he meant it. He was just being with her. “Ah, well then,” she’d said, squeezing his hand and hiking her legs higher around his hips, “don’t let me stop you.”

He’d huffed that understated laugh of his, increasing the intensity of his thrusts but keeping the pace slow. She’d moaned into his mouth, feeling herself tighten as he built the pleasure between them, pushing into her languidly but relentlessly. When she came, it’d been like a wave breaking, unexpected and powerful.

“I’m with you,” he’d breathed into her mouth, and crashed with her.

Curled up on the floor of her shower now, she lets that memory wash over her. As lovely as it is, it doesn’t change what she’s just done. Even if she could make it better, she doesn’t think she deserves it. 

She’s not sure she’s capable of that kind of connection anymore, not with anyone else, and maybe especially not with Oliver.

It probably won’t stop her from trying. She always chooses the wrong thing.

_\--_

Oliver is at her door in the morning, looking worse for wear. She shouldn’t be surprised, as she’d ignored his calls all night. But somehow she is surprised that he’d want to see her voluntarily after...that.

He looks impossibly handsome even now, even as his shoulders sag and the skin around his eyes tighten at the sight of her. It’s unfair, and tragic in a way. “Felicity,” he says, voice determined, if a little desperate.

She blinks rapidly - if she cries now, she’ll never be able to get him to leave. “Oliver, I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls last night. I was embarrassed, but it’s okay, really. I’m fine.”

HIs jaw clenches. He stares at her hard, like he’s trying to will her say something different. When she doesn’t, he muscles his way past her into the loft they used to share. Then turns toward her, an about-face so quick she herself would have fallen over if she’d tried it. “You’re not fine.”

“Yes, I am,” she says, as if saying so will make it true. He is both the first and last person Felicity wants to talk to about this - he’d be so understanding, but she doesn’t want understanding. She wants justice for the tens of thousands of people she killed, even if that means destroying herself in the process. Sometimes she thinks destroying herself is the only way she’ll be able to live with any of this.

Which is why she moves. If she can’t get him to leave - and she knows she can’t, not when he thinks it’s her well-being on the line - then she’ll just have to take advantage of his presence.

“I think last night shows that _neither_ of us are fine,” he says as she steps closer. “I just want to help.”

She’s so very close now, she has to crane her neck to look up at him. “If you want to help me,” she says, flattening her hand very deliberately just above his belt buckle, “then _help_ me.”

Oliver breathes out unsteadily. She wishes he would look away from her, wishes he didn’t see her so clearly. “Felicity,” he says softly, sadly, as she undos his belt and unzips his jeans. “I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything you want.”

He’s telling the truth, in his own way. But he would never give her the justice she knows she deserves. In lieu of that, she’ll have to take this.

She drops to her knees in front of him and, for a little while, makes them both forget.

_\--_

Life goes on, and Felicity goes aimlessly with it.

Diggle comes back. Thea stays away. Oliver starts to train a new, painfully young team. She’s proud of Oliver for teaching - in as much as she can be proud of him; she’s not feeling much these days, except anger.

Felicity is angry all the time now, about everything. She’s angry about how Diggle’s gaze follows her quietly, angry that he left, angry that he's back, angry that she’s too selfish to forgive him for either. She’s angry at Thea for finding a life outside of their team. She’s angry at the new team for being so eager. She’s angry at Curtis for caring enough to keep checking on her. She’s angry at her mother for her happiness. She’s angry at Lance because he can grieve when she can’t seem to.

It feels like a constant vibration under skin, and every time she opens her mouth she’s afraid she’ll breath fire, so she keeps her mouth shut.

The only time she doesn’t feel angry - or the only time her anger gets a release, she’s not sure which - is when Oliver is inside her. It’s not loving, and it doesn’t give her peace. She still feels sadness, and guilt, and shame (never more than when it’s over), but to get a break from the rage? That’s a relief.

It’s how she’s in one of the lair’s storage closets, hair falling out of its ponytail and glasses on the floor, with her legs wrapped around Oliver while he fucks her against a wall. She inches up the wall every time he heaves into her, and he has to pull her back down to him after every thrust.

Oliver’s harsh breathing and her muffled moans echo in the silence she’s enforced. She’s only in control here because he lets her be, because he’s following her lead. She doesn’t know how long that will last, how far he’ll follow her without question, but she does know that talking about this would be the end of it.

She’d told him that once. _Told you as soon as we talked, it would be over._

She clenches around him, feeling her climax approaching, and his fingers spasm around her breast. They move to her nipple, pinching and rolling it, and she’s spiralling, her brain finally, finally still.

He surges against her with his own release, whispering something Felicity thinks might be _I love you_.

She pretends not to hear it.

_\--_

Things can't get worse. It's something that Felicity tells herself to get through her days: things can't get worse than being a mass murderer. It's almost comforting.

Until things do get worse.

She carries on with Oliver, even as she starts to see the new DA. She meets him by chance, on her way out of a meeting with Thea at City Hall to talk about setting up free WiFi for the city. It just seems like the thing to do: her friend is dead, and she's disappearing, so of course she should go out with her dead friend’s replacement. It seems just terrible enough to fit who she is now.

And, of course, they run into Oliver on one of their dates. Getting an opera company to make a stop in Star City is a triumph for Oliver, and somewhere in the back of her mind she had known he would be there. He’s the mayor. The mayor couldn’t miss the first major arts event in his city in years.

So here they stand in the lobby of the theater with the crowd waiting to take their seats. Adrian is at her side, talking jovially while Felicity looks anywhere but at Oliver. If Adrian notices the awkwardness, the barely-masked looks of betrayal Oliver is sending her, he’s kind enough not to acknowledge it.

Felicity always knew she was going to blow up this thing with Oliver. It’s what she does.

The lights dim twice, and the doors open. She and Adrian leave Oliver to his box seat, and they go to sit in auditorium. If she turns to her right she can see him up there, and she’s not sure if she’s imagining it or if he is really staring at her instead of the stage.

She only makes it about twenty minutes - heavy with the weight of Oliver’s disappointment bearing down on her - before she turns to Adrian to tell him she’s going to the bathroom.

She doesn’t need the bathroom; what she needs is air, so she heads for an exit down a long hall away from the auditorium. She’s just about to open the door when a hand grabs her arm and whirls her around.

It’s Oliver - hadn’t she expected him, isn’t that why she came out here? - and his face is thunderous. He uses his body to crowd her into the corner.

Her pulse races, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of dread or excitement. “Oliver.”

Her eyes flick past him down the hallway; it’s empty, and there’s no clear view to the auditorium from where they are. Being caught seems like the last thing on Oliver’s mind, but she wonders what he’d do if they were. From the look on his face, maybe nothing.

“What, Felicity?” he asks. She doesn’t recognize the tone in his voice, but the hand that finds the slit of her dress and slides between her thighs is all too familiar. She’s not going to stop him - he knows that as well as she does. “Isn’t this what you want?”

But that’s the problem - she doesn’t want anything, except to go back to that night and choose differently. Why couldn’t she have done that? Why couldn’t she have sent the bomb into the water? Why couldn’t she have sent it anywhere but where it landed? What good is her brilliant brain if she can’t use it to save anyone?

There’s no point to it, but she can’t seem to want anything else. She can’t make herself care about anything or anyone else. Something black and awful blooms in her chest, while sensation blooms where Oliver strokes her sex. 

His fingers push aside her underwear, and his thumb finds her clit, circles it. He plunges two fingers inside her and her head falls forward into his chest with a cry.

His other hand finds her chin, tilts her head back so that she has to look at him. “I told you I’d do anything for you,” he says, watching her. His fingers work inside her furiously, and she locks her knees, afraid they’re going to give out.

His blue eyes bore into her, his own breath blowing harshly across her face. She bucks her hips, she can’t stop herself, and he must know she’s close. He curls the fingers inside her and presses his thumb flat against her clit.

She comes with a shout, slapping a hand against the door to brace herself. Both noises echo down the empty hallway.

“There,” he says, pulling his hand away abruptly and standing back. Pulling away from her completely. “You’re done.”

He says it so blandly, so coldly, that she hears what he’s really saying: _I’m done._

He leaves her, there with her ruined skin and ruined heart, without another word. 

She can’t blame him. She ruined him first.

_\--_

Felicity doesn’t go back to her seat. She takes a cab home, texting Adrian an apology and a promise to call him later.

She won’t.

She hacks the theater’s simple security system and replaces the footage of her and Oliver with a loop of the empty hallway. It’s a reflex of sorts; her heart’s not in it. She deletes it because that’s what she’s supposed to do. And because she owes it to Oliver. If nothing else, she owes him that.

Diggle calls when she doesn’t go into the lair for two days. So do Thea and Curtis, and at one point someone actually comes over and knocks on her door. She ignores it all, hiding out in her room. She texts Dig that she’s taking a vacation, and they stop bothering her after that. 

Oliver never calls.

\--

She wakes up from an afternoon nap on day three, and decides that enough time has passed. As much as she’s dreading contact with the team, more time away isn’t going to help. She forces herself to take a shower and go through her routine, makeup and all.

She has every intention of going to the lair, but when she gets to the building, she goes up instead of down. She takes the elevator as far as it will go, and then the stairs the rest of the way to the roof. She steps out into the cool evening air and moves slowly to the ledge, to a spot where the railing breaks, leaving a space before it picks up again several feet away.

Gripping the railing, she carefully maneuvers herself so that she’s sitting on the ledge, legs dangling over it. The building is high enough that she gets a good view of the city as the sun sets, and objectively she knows it’s pretty. Beyond that, she feels nothing, not even when she looks down at the street below. There’s no anxiety at the height, or fear at the risk of falling. There’s just nothing.

She’s been sitting a few minutes, leaning into the railing for support, when she hears the roof door open behind her. She knows before she looks that it’s Oliver - it was always going to be him.

He comes toward her, but his movements are uncertain, cautious, like he’s afraid he’s going to spook her. She almost tells him that she has no intention of jumping, that he can relax, and then realizes he probably wouldn’t find that very reassuring.

“Can we talk?” he asks when he reaches her.

She figures it’s about time for that. “Okay.”

He sits beside her on the ledge, mirroring her position against the railing on his other side. 

The silence stretches, and he seems to be searching for what to say, so she starts instead. “I’m not seeing Adrian anymore.”

He closes his eyes at that, regret etched all over his features. “Felicity, I'm sorry. What I did was…wrong.” Oliver breaks off, clearly frustrated with himself, “I didn’t mean it. I'm so sorry.”

Felicity shakes her head. “ _I_ hurt _you_. I started this, Oliver, I did this. Everything I've done up ‘til now has been wrong.”

“That's not true,” Oliver replies. “I’m not saying that what we’re doing is healthy, but...it is understandable. I think you're just trying to cope.”

She scoffs. “God, if this is coping, I don't want to know what _not_ coping looks like.” 

She quiets for a moment, looking out over the shadowed city, knowing he'll wait for her to say what she needs to say. She is so grateful for his patience, though she doesn't know why he still gives it to her. (Really, she knows why. She just doesn’t want to believe it. She’s not worthy of it.)

“You were right. I'm not okay,” she says hoarsely.

It’s finally the truth, and for a second - just for a second - he’s off balance, and she can see the fear and stress she’s caused plainly on his face. But then it's gone, like he puts it away, and he nods resignedly. 

He reaches over and takes her hand. “You don’t have to be okay.”

As it turns out, that’s all she needed to hear. The dam of emotion inside her breaks, and it floods everything. She’s crying, her whole body racking with sobs. 

Oliver puts an arm around her shoulders. “We should probably get off this ledge before you take us both down,” he says, voice strained.

Now she’s crying _and_ laughing, and it’s shocking but also a relief. It’s such a relief to _feel_ something, even if it’s this bottomless sadness. So she lets him guide her down to the roof floor, sitting so their backs are against the ledge they’d just been sitting on.

She lays her head on his shoulder. Her hands are shaking and she’s still hiccuping through her tears, but she feels better now than she has in months.

She takes his hand again. “Don’t leave.”

He kisses the top of her head and twines their fingers together. “I won’t,” he promises.

And he doesn’t.

-30-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [all worthy places](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8200213) by [therewasagirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/therewasagirl/pseuds/therewasagirl)




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